Lake Mareotis

Lake Mareotis, now known as Lake Mariout, is a brackish lake in northern Egypt. It once covered 435 square miles of water, being fed with the Nile water via a number of canals. By the 1100s, it dwindled to a collection of salt lakes and salt flats, and it had dried up by the late Middle Ages. A storm in 1770 breached the Aboukir seawall and refilled the lake, and, in 1801, the British cut the canal during their siege of Alexandria, turning the lake into a brackish lake instead of a freshwater lake. The flood destroyed 150 villages, and the lake suddenly regained its ancient area. At the beginning of the 21st century, it was once again reduced to just 31 square miles of water.